The book says that the first step in losing weight is detoxification, to remove toxic overload from the body. Toxins stored in fat cells are difficult to get rid of through dieting alone. You must first detoxify the body. Thus, the most effective weight-loss programs should focus on both fat loss and detoxification, which lead to overall improved health and wellness. Raw greens can heal the body. You will detoxify your body through elimination of certain foods for ten days and reprogram your taste buds to desire healthy, nutrient-rich foods. The author states that after you complete the cleanse, you will never have to count calories or follow complicated or expensive meal plans or measure food again, as your body will naturally crave and desire healthy, natural foods.”

I opted to do a Full Cleanse, where I ‘eat’ only smoothies, snacks and water/herbal tea for 10 days.

Today I am on Day 10 and even though the experience has been eye-opening and great (losing 5.5 kg/12 lbs in 10 days, my skin has never-seen-before glow, my hair is stronger and fluffier, sleeping whole 8 hours everyday, feeling energized), I am now ready to go back eating wholefoods again.

With every challenge, I like to reward myself with a little something for accomplishing it. For this one, I have decided to break the cleanse tomorrow with making my favorite Indonesian food of late, Pampis Cakalang Pedas (Spicy shredded fish Manado style), this dish is also referred to Ikan Suwir Rica-Rica

This dish can be made with any kind of fish in the market, though I tend to go with fish from the sea with some good oil in them (have tried with tuna/maguro, salmon, mackerel/saba, amberjack/buri). Traditionally in Manado they use the ubiquitous fish there called “Cakalang” (skipjack tuna in English, or katsuo in Japanese). Lucky for me living in Japan, katsuo is very easy to come by, and therefore I can easily make this dish as often as I like!

Without further ado, let me introduce you to the wonder of Pampis Cakalang Pedas. Bon Appetit!

I was never a fan of Mac n cheese. In fact I never really saw what the big hoopla is all about. I guess the ones I’ve tasted were mostly of packaged products. The taste was alright, texture was mediocre, and I often thought that they should use less orange or yellow food colouring in it. But hey, maybe it is deliberated to attract children’s attention. You know what, it seems to be working! Children are crazy about Mac n Cheese. Just not this one.

Many versions of Mac n Cheese I have tried since, from packaged ones to homemade ones. I have even tried to order some at restaurants. Sure, there are some who are better than others, but nothing blew my mind. My opinion on the matter remain unchanged.

Until a couple of weeks ago I watched an episode of Masterchef Australia’s Masterclasses – where an esteemed chef Marco Pierre White gave a class on his take of Mac n Cheese. He talked through his process in making the dish, with the rationale on why each of the step and ingredients are important. I was hooked looking at it, with the type of cheese used and addition of multiple mushrooms, the creamy bechamel sauce, I can’t help but told myself I must try to make it because it looks so darned delicious!

And so I did.

The original MPW recipe is available here for you to peruse. But as always, I tweaked it to match what I have in my pantry and fridge with some protein addition that I believe had brought the flavour to another level! A few of my regular taste tester had tried this and all approve. And my little friend Quinn has also gave me his stamp of approval. Enak!!! (Enak = delicious in Bahasa Indonesia).

Bring 5L salted water to a boil over high heat. Add macaroni and cook according package instruction and stop about 1 minute before al dente (if package says 8 minute, then stop cooking at 7 minute and then drain)

]]>https://myorangepot.wordpress.com/2015/07/11/mac-n-cheese-a-la-marco-pierre-white-with-my-orange-pots-twist/feed/0Mac n CheesetaikotariMac n CheeseMac n CheesegENAK!!!#Weekly_Canteen Menu for February 26https://myorangepot.wordpress.com/2015/02/22/weekly_canteen-menu-for-february-26/
https://myorangepot.wordpress.com/2015/02/22/weekly_canteen-menu-for-february-26/#respondSun, 22 Feb 2015 03:59:23 +0000http://myorangepot.com/?p=34636Hello friends! Are you ready to for the last #Weekly_Canteen this quarter?

Thought to do something special and make a menu that caters for everyone’s dietary preferences for this temporary last service.

Thank you so much for your orders last week! I hope you’ve enjoyed your Thursday dinners, as much as I have enjoyed making them.

Please see below the menu for this Thursday, February 5th:

This week’s menu will feature two very exciting new items for you to sample as below:

Telur Pindang | Indonesian Marbled Eggs

And also our well-loved Crunchy Lemon Whole Wheat Muffins!

Crunchy lemon Whole Wheat Muffins

As a reminder please note the below regarding pick-up and drop off:

Pick up: between 5 – 7 pm at MyOrangePot.com HQ in Yoyogi 4-chome (4 minutes walk from Sangubashi station or 30 seconds walk from Yoyogi 3-chome bus stop). Pick-up address will be informed when your order is confirmed

Drop off: between 7:15 – 7:45 pm. We will meet you at the JR Yoyogi Yamanote/Sobu line West gate

A friendly reminder: our last service for the first quarter in 2015 is Thursday, February 26. Until then I will post the weekly menu to www.myorangepot.com on Sundays in the morning and hope to hear from you by noon on Tuesdays.

Many of you have expressed interest in subscribing to a mailing list for the menu. Please kindly provide your e-mail address to myorangepot@gmail.com.

One of my early memories of my mother’s kitchen is recalling that my mother always puts aside the red onion (bawang merah/shallots) peel in a ‘besek’ (wicker basket) at the corner of the kitchen. When we kids helped her peeling the little tear-jerking little red things, she will call out to us,

“Save the peels and put it in the ‘besek’! Yes, all of them, don’t throw them out. We will use it to make Telur Pindang!”

Last Thursday, when I was cooking for #Weekly_Canteen, I can hear her voice saying the very thing to me. As I industrially proceeded in peeling about 100 red onions, I consciously put all the red onion peel aside. Little by little the peel mounted up and at the end of the process, I ended up with an equivalent of big udon bowl of red onion peel.

Now what?

The only correct answer to that question now is to then do what Mama says endlessly: make yourself some Telur Pindang! Pindang is an Indonesian traditional method to preserve food, usually employing fish (ikan) and eggs (telur). The technique is native to Java and Sumatra islands (two out of the big 5 islands in Indonesian archipelago). To pindang something is a cooking process where you boil the ingredients in certain spices – usually salt, soy sauce, teak leaves, or other spices. The process gives the food dark brown color and last longer compared to plainly boiled food.

Mama walked me through the process over text messages with her typical directions: with low heat boil some eggs with a lot of salt with red onion peel, salam leaves, guava leaves and you can also add some tea leaves to make the color really red. Crack the shells midway to create the marbly coloring and so the flavor could seep through.

When inquired how much of the ingredients I should use for how many eggs, her answer was simply,

“Ya dikira-kira saja…”

(loosely translated, “Just use your own judgement, just enough…”)

So, I take this as a challenge. Yesterday was a slushy snowy day in Tokyo, I took it as the perfect opportunity to spend indoors and make this little gems. I tried three different ways to finally come to the below recipe. For your benefit I have measured and timed it so you don’t need to go wild in doing the guessing game that Mama suggested. I have also adjusted the recipe to ingredients that are readily available in ethnic supermarkets in Japan (or non tropical countries).

From the point of water boiling, after 15 minutes, lift the eggs out and place in cold water

When cool enough to handle, using the back of a spoon gently crack the shells all over, creating a spider web looking cracks. Do not peel!

Return the eggs into the pot – check if you need to add water to make sure everything is in the brownish concoction

Continue to simmer (low heat!) for about 75~105 minutes, stir occasionally. Add some water when you feel the water is gone too quickly, the eggs need to be in the water to produce a rich web/marbly coloring.

When done, remove eggs from saucepan and place in cold water. Peel eggs now and, if possible, serve with Indonesian dishes like Mama’s Mie Goreng.

**Like me – where it’s close to impossible to score any teak leaves or guava leaves, then I resort to using tea. Make sure that the tea bags of your choice don’t have strong smell like earl grey so it does not over power the other ingredients when boiling. My personal preference is white or green tea. White tea has no strong smell but green tea produces a much brighter marble web.

Please note that since MyOrangePot’s #Weekly_Canteen is pretty much a one woman-show, there has been adjustments made to this service:

With the lack of (wo)manpower, we no longer provide delivery service, but you are most welcome to pick up your food at MyOrangePot.com HQ in Yoyogi 4-chome (4 minutes walk from Sangubashi station or 30 seconds walk from Yoyogi 3-chome bus stop) between 4:30 – 7:00 pm.

Pick-up address will be informed when your order is confirmed

Alternatively, we will provide a pick-up service at JR Yoyogi Station, between 7:15 – 7:45 pm. We will meet you at the JR Yamanote/Sobu line West gate

Last but not least, due to some pre-arranged travel plans, please be informed that the #Weekly_Canteen will be in service for a limited period of time. Our last service for the first quarter in 2015 is Thursday, February 26.

I just renewed my apartment contract again for 2015 and decided that since I’m not terribly busy anymore with work things, I should – for once and for all – take a close look to the many, many things which have taken space-hogging residence in my apartment. Somehow after 8 years in this apartment, my things have exponentially grown in volume, and although they came here with good reasons, a serious decluttering need to take place. The effort will be a huge undertaking, especially since it will require a steel emotion (e.g. standing strong to some emotional/guilt trip such as… “Awww, but so-and-so got this for me somewhere”, “Ah! Surely I can fix it if I take it to the service man — something you’ve told yourself for at least 5 years –, “But, but, but, it was from that time I was in Greece…”, etc. ).

My pantry is no exception to this. I’m going through the drawers and shelves with an iron fist. If it is already expired – chuck it. If it’s almost expiring and you have multiple containers – donate it to a food drive, give it to the hungry homeless people around the neighbourhood. If there are things that looks remotely interesting, souvenirs from some holidays, etc, well maybe keep some, but anything outdated must go.

In this line of thinking, I have also decided to not buy anything for the pantry anymore unless it is fresh produce and pantry staples like flour or rice etc. In this raid, I came across a large collection of quinoa, couscous, dal (red lentils), dried chick peas, all sorts of legumes and lastly… I found some BROWN LENTILS!

Oh yay! I totally forgot I have a bag of it. Ho ho ho! I just came across a recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi’s “Plenty” for pulses/legumes that I’ve been intrigued to try. whilst it’s paired with broiled eggplant in the book, I am pretty convince that this would also work very well with other main dish like grilled fish, poultry or meats.

Yeah, I think it’s OK to postpone the decluttering mission to another day. It is now time to play in the kitchen!

Lentils with broiled eggplant

As mentioned above, the recipe in the book is pairing it with broiled eggplant as below, but I have paired it with some grilled salmon, braised lamb shanks, and simple grilled steaks. I will write a follow up post on the braised lamb shanks at a latter date.

Adapted from “Plenty” by Yotam Ottolenghi

For the eggplants:

Tools: griller net

Total cook time: 5 minutes preparation, 25 cooking and waiting

Ingredients

8 small Japanese eggplants (about 15-20 cm long each)

2 Tbsp red-wine vinegar

salt and blackpepper

Directions

Grill the eggplant over a gas grill, directly on top of fire, rotating it around until the skin is completely charred, about 10 minutes.

Let the eggplant cool and peel off the charred skin completely. (Tip: I often put the charred eggplant in a plastic bag after grilling to let it cool down and can peel the eggplant very easily). Depending on the type of eggplant, some can contain quite a lot of liquid. If that is the case, then leave to drain for at least 15 minutes. Afterward season with plenty of salt and pepper and 1/2 Tbsp of the vinegar. Set aside.

Do in batches to ensure you make use of the entire open fire coverage

For the lentils

Tools: saucepan/soup pot

Total cook time: 10 minutes preparation, 30 minutes cook time

Ingredients

1 cup small brown lentils (such as Puy or Castelluccio), rinsed

3 small carrots, peeled

1 celery stalks and leaves

1 bay leaf

1 tsp dried thyme

1/2 white onion

3 Tbsp olive oil, plus extra to finish

12 cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 tsp brown sugar

1 Tbsp chopped cilantro (the original recipe suggested to also add 1 Tbsp of chopped parsley and dill)

2 Tbsp yogurt (note: the original recipe asked for creme fraiche)

Directions (While the eggplants are being cooked…)

Place the lentils in a medium saucepan. Cut one carrot and half a celery stalk into large chunks and throw them in. Add the bay leaf, thyme, and onion (don’t chop it, keep it in half. I chopped the onion in the first try, and it went soggy and made it very difficult to pick through afterwards). Cover with plenty of water and bring to the boil. Simmer on low heat for up to 25 minutes (or until lentils are tender), skimming away the froth from the surface from time to time.

Drain in a sieve/colander. Remove and discard the carrot, celery, bay leaf, thyme and onion bits. Transfer the lentils to a mixing bowl. Add the rest of the vinegar, 2 Tbsp of olive oil and plenty of salt and pepper, stir and set aside somewhere warm (I actually put the lentils back in the now empty saucepan).

Cut the remaining carrot and celery (stalks and leaves bits) into 1 cm dice and mix with the tomatoes, remaining oil, sugar and some salt. Spread in an ovenproof dish (best to be pre-sprayed in olive oil spray) and cook in the oven for about 20 minutes (temperature was 180C), or until the carrot is tender but still firm.

Add the cooked vegetables to the warm lentils, followed by the chopped herbs and stir gently. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Spoon the lentils onto serving plates. Pile some eggplant in the center of each portion and top it with a dollop of yogurt. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil.

Serves 4

]]>https://myorangepot.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/lentils-with-broiled-eggplant/feed/0LentilstaikotariLentils 3LentilsDo in batches to ensure you make use of the entire open fire coverageSpicy dal + carrot souphttps://myorangepot.wordpress.com/2014/12/14/spicy-dal-carrot-soup/
https://myorangepot.wordpress.com/2014/12/14/spicy-dal-carrot-soup/#respondSun, 14 Dec 2014 08:44:16 +0000http://myorangepot.com/?p=9177

It’s that time of the year again, when every morning you wake up with a slight shiver since the morning air is a little on the cold side. Or when you go to bed, you want to lay under layers of blankets, wrap yourself up in a snuggie. And when it comes dinner time, the first thing that comes to mind is to have soup, soup and more soup.

Last month I spent about a month in the East Coast of United States. What the East Coast residents call the Fall, is what we in Tokyo call the deep Winter. I experienced more -5C ~ -7C days in a month than the whole Winter long in Tokyo! As a remedy to this chilly weather, I resort to having soup in all sorts of shapes and flavours, ranging from: Soto Madura (Indonesia’s Madura island beef soup) – I made this one, turkey noodle soup (also made this one), chicken noodle soup, minestrone, Chinese sweet corn and chicken soup, sweet and sour soup, Peruvian seafood marinara soup, chili con carne, lobster bisque, chicken dumpling soup and so much more.

Upon returning to Tokyo, Winter is in full gear. I am on a serious mission to declutter my apartment and use up things in my pantry. I came across a few bags of dal (red lentils) and suddenly bells ringing in my head… “Dal and carrot soup to warm cold winter meals!” I have this go-to-recipe from my vegetarian cookbook that I’d like to document here and share with you.

1 1/4 cups milk (can be replaced with soy milk or almond milk to make a vegan version)

2 Tbsp chopped cilantro

Optional: unsweetened yogurt, to serve

Spices

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 fresh red chile pepper, chopped

1/2 tsp ground turmeric

1 Tbsp lemon juice

Salt to taste

Directions:

Wash and rinse lentils in a strainer (or you can get a pre-rinsed version, so you could skip this step)

In a soup pot, heat up the olive oil and sauté the chopped onions and garlic until fragrant

Drain the lentils and add to the onion and garlic mix, add carrots, tomatoes and 4 cups of vegetable stock

Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until the vegetables and lentils are tender

For the spices, heat the olive oil in a small pan. Add the cumin, ground coriander, chili and turmeric and fry over a low heat for 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice. Season with salt to taste

Bring the soup into a cooler temperature and add the spices from step 5 and process the soup in batches in a blender or food processor. (I have a rather large blender that could process hot food immediately in one go. However if you don’t have one, make sure to do it in batches)

Return the soup to the saucepan, add the remaining 1 cup of vegetable stock and simmer over a low heat for 10 minutes

Add the milk, taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Stir in the chopped cilantro and reheat gently. Serve hot with a drizzle of yogurt

Have you ever found yourself in a situation when you have a group of people coming over to your house with different dietary restrictions – halal, vegetarian, vegan, kosher, no red meat, no seafood, no vinegar, no this no that? Okay, I have never had all the aforementioned restrictions all in one go, but I often find 2-3 combos at once. In the past, as most host would try to do, I end up making too many things to cater for everyone or stick to one type of restrictions that is most encompassing.

Recently I have switched my thinking owing to the many hotel buffet tables that I’ve frequented in the past 3 months. For the record, I don’t normally go for buffet food. In my opinion they’re always a touch too cold (for warm dishes), or too warm (for cold cuts), food’s been cooked way too long until we get to them, or spicing is too blend (because you cook in large bulk). However it is not all bad, in fact there are some amazing buffet tables that I’ve grown to love, such as the excellent food provided by The Oriental Hotel in Kobe, or the amazing spread at Park Hyatt Tokyo’s New York Grill, or The French Kitchen at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo. They always have a little bit of everything and you can just pick the foods you want and combine it the way you like, and you have the food that is perfect for your dietary restrictions.

This is finally how I came to today’s recipe. In the spirit of being versatile at the dinner table, I have since concluded that pizza is the way to go when you have a complicated combo of dietary restrictions. You can easily make the base and put toppings that strikes your fancy. I had a non-meat eater visiting a couple of nights ago, while I wanted to use up the beef pepperoni. Made the pizza base and pizza sauce as Jamie O would do and go crazy with the topping as it strikes your fancy!

In a large bowl combine all the flours and sea salt, whisk it so it is well distributed

In a glass container, add yeast and sugar into the lukewarm water and let sit for about 4-5 minutes until the yeast looks activated

On a clean surface, pile the flour mix and make a 10 cm well in the centre. Add the yeast-sugar-water mixture into the well, then using a fork and a circular movement, slowly bring in the flour from the inner edge of the well. Continue to mix until all the flour is incorporated.

When it becomes too hard to mix with fork, flour your hands and begin patting the mix into a ball. A kitchen scraper can also be useful in helping you bring the dough together. Knead the dough by rolling backward and forward, using your left hand to stretch the dough toward you and your right hand to push the dough away at the same time. Repeat for 10 minutes or until you have a smooth, springy, soft dough.

Flour the top of the dough and cover in plastic/glad wrap. Let it sit for about 15-30 minutes at room temperature.

Afterward you can cut the dough into many small balls or several big balls. This recipe is approximately half of what Jamie O makes in the linked recipe, so I typically divide this into 3 balls.